Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

"Andrew L. Moore" <slewsys@gmail.com> writes:

> The LLVM source repository includes a patch adding basic lldb support
> to gud.el. The patch adapted to current gud.el (Github-mirror commit
> 7e09ef09a479731d01b1ca46e94ddadd73ac98e3) is attached below. Although
> I’m not affiliated with llvm.org, I’d be interested to know if and how
> this might be accepted into the Emacs distribution, RMS’s opinion of
> LLVM notwithstanding. Thank you!

The general position with regard to proprietary software (which LLVM
isn't, but there can be proprietary variants) is that we don't want to
support functionality that isn't supported by free software in order not
to provide an incentive to use non-free software.

Now anything supporting the free LLVM variant does not force one to use
non-free software, so the rule does not really apply.  However, we still
want to have people prefer GNU software over GPLed software, and GPLed
software over non-copylefted software, so this case may be considered
somewhat analogous.

In this particular case, gdb is already fully supported.  So my opinion
would be, for what it's worth, that "basic lldb support" should be
unproblematic as long as it does not involve functionality absent from
gud-gdb.

Naturally, it's best to wait what Richard has to say on that.

-- 
David Kastrup